Short Novels for Quarantine, a Commentary.

Sometimes you don't want to read a 500 page novel.

So you try and find something short and sweet which sometimes works out well but in other occasions...you're out of luck. Some books need more pages to tell a full story but I'm here to recommend the most memorable, intriguing and thought-provoking shorter ones which are equally as good. If not better.

Here as some of the best novellas (in no particular order) to accompany you through your quarantine boredom, now is the best time to catch up on some light reading. These won't take you a long time to read but will give you the entertainment you desire and leave you feeling more productive.

1.  We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson.

           

This is a book I'm always going to be grateful I read and remains in my top five favourite reads of all time.

It's strange. That's the best way to describe it. 

Merricat is a tomboy with strange thoughts who lives in the Blackwood family home with her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian. The people of the town are more than wary and on edge around these remaining family members who survived an unsolved murder case where the rest of the family died of arsenic poisoning. Her sister was blamed for the events and since then it's been the three, shunned from society but enjoy their outcast ways of life with wishes of preserving it.

When their cousin Charles comes along desperate to get into the safe Merricat feels protective of her home and values and wants nothing more than for him to go away.

This novel is subtle in it's ways of psychological suspense, the narrative suggesting horror undertones and possible insanity while projecting child-like nostalgia. It's definitely more than what it seems on the surface, that's for sure.

With only 158 pages of which include the Afterword in the Penguin Classics edition, this manages to say a lot without having to overdo it. Everything is subtle but the themes are set out in front of you, you read Merricat's strange thoughts and it propels you to continue reading. It's a true masterpiece. It makes you wonder, implies without telling to keep you guessing and is the right amount of drama without making you scratch your head in confusion. 

★★★★★
5 stars. 

   2. After The Quake by Haruki Murakami.

            

This is a very short book consisting of short stories, tales if you like that very lightly, if not vaguely, touch upon the 1995 Earthquake in Kobe, Japan. Don't let that put you off. It's fiction and is more fantastical than anything.

Satsuki wonders if her hating a man for thirty years has somehow caused an earthquake. Miyake travelled to a beach to make midnight bonfires hundreds of miles away from his family. A young teenager, Sala has nightmares about the 'Earthquake man' trying to stuff her inside a little box and Katagiri finds a giant frog in his home who is trying to save Tokyo from a huge burrowing worm.

     

It's a fast and easy read, something you can enjoy reading on a bus journey like I did. It's usually something that wouldn't be my cup of tea or preferred genre/s but the tone somehow successfully made the stories interesting and inviting. I remember the giant frog tale being particularly entertaining. It's something you don't have to take seriously because it's not going to be a waste of time, it's too short for that. It gets you in the mood to read more and its a little touch of reality mixed with otherworldly things. It's adventurous and you feel satisfied when you close the book in the end.

★★★★☆
4 stars.

   3. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.

           

Even to those who don't usually take up reading as a hobby, this is undoubtedly unique with enough madness, horror and mystery to make you forget there's a book gripped in your hands. It entertains all and can reach a range of audiences and is loved by many with its originality into uncovering the ways of humanity.

All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.

The story follows a lawyer investigating peculiar events with his friend Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, unaware of the immoral combination of characters being created behind closed doors-two people in one person.

The gothic writing is easy to follow and has a flowing pace with the right amount of revelations being made at the right time to create a clear beginning, middle and end. It's wild  with its curious investigations and constantly runs the question of good VS evil. What can possibly come out of playing with your mind and messing with science in such an immoral way?

★★★★☆
4 stars.

    4. Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson.

             

Simply a terrific horror writer. This time 'Dark Tales' is a collection of short stories, merely a few pages long each. They are all written in various settings with believable characters in different sets of minds with their own problems at hand.

In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There's something sinister in suburbia.

It dives deep into the darkness of ones mind, how a normal person can be riddled with despair and want to do impulsive, bad deeds which are often not like their usual self. Shirley Jackson is the master of deciphering how we think and behave and puts a twist to keep us on the edge of our seats. Sometimes simplicity is better, and these stories get the character's behaviour and reactions just right, so that we as the reader think they truly exist in our world, and showcases emotion in a way that is haunting and real.

Some stories are more fast paced and action-filled and some takes its time to allow us to understand how small events can lead to something from a nightmare...


★★★★✭
4.5 stars.

    5. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen.

             

A magnificent book I would recommend to all. Based on real events, it includes prints of real forms for us to see and analyse so throughout the story we can question, "did she really deserve to be sent to a psychiatric hospital or did the system let her down?"

In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele--Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles--as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary.

It's brilliant for it's a very open and honest insight to the mind of a young girl being diagnosed with personality disorder among other things. We read as Susanna herself questions if they are real diagnostics, if she belongs where she is or if she'll ever be allowed to mingle in society again. We read as she interacts with other patients, who are also based off of real people, and reveals all the treatments they had to go through with daily routines. She is aware of how things are and how things work, and as the book goes along she speaks to us directly to discuss cleverly all the things wrong with what doctor's told her.

★★★★★
5 stars.

Whilst on this note, I'd like to give an honorable shout-out to 'The Bell Jar' by Slyvia Plath since it's a nice comparison to 'Girl, Interrupted', with both novels being in similar lengths, surrounding the same institution in different times with different events unfolding. The female characters in either book are alike and different in many ways, and while one is set in Mclean Hospital, the other portrays life leading up to admittance. The tones are unique in their own ways and deserve to be acknowledged for their creativity.

    6. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

            

One of the most cleverly written books I've ever came across in my life so far. 

The classic novel about a daring experiment in human intelligence Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper and the gentle butt of everyone's jokes - until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius. But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental tranformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.

It says a lot about social construct, how we perceive and treat people not as smart as us and those who are more advanced in their intelligence. What would happen if someone known for their stupidity suddenly became a genius? Would you treat them any different because now they understand what they couldn't before?

It's skillful with the way it logs Charlie's progress and thoughts in his own words throughout the duration of the novella. How in the beginning he makes loads of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and we read as it begins to improve, as he writes more until eventually he's intellectual and a clever man. And we read as he makes horrible realisations about the world he lives in and as everything he knows starts to slip away again...

★★★★★
5 stars.

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I hope in these unusual and worrying times you are all staying safe and indoors. I also hope that this list may be what you need to keep occupied without having to be overly dedicated to a tedious hobby whilst also keeping yourself productive and satisfied. (Let me know your thoughts!)

May these stories come to life and cure your boredom.